Re: Line boxes

On Thu, 16 Dec 1999, Matthew Brealey wrote:

>> Vertical margins have absolutely no effect on inline elements.
> That's as may be, as things stand, but it is nonsensical to adopt
> such an approach because:
> 1. it reduces flexibility
> 2. vertical borders clearly _must_ be and are allowed on inline
> elements, and since they only differ (aside from other, irrelevant
> differences) in that one is coloured and the other is not, if you
> allow borders, you must allow margins.

Vertical margins are, indeed, allowed. But because they are
transparent and because the padding/border/margin properties do not
affect the _layout_ (only the painting) of the document, the net
result is that vertical margins on inline elements have no visible
effect. They may be present, but are invisible.

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